Page 166 of The Altar Girls

Naomi leaned against the bathroom door as if trying to blend into the timber. The child was as frightened as a mouse trapped by a cat.

‘Enough of the histrionics. I have to work and I’ve been fluting around town in the freezing cold looking for you. You think of no one but yourself, Willow Devine.’

As Zara grabbed her daughter’s bare arm, her words reminded her of her own mother’s. Words shouted at her for the entirety of her childhood, causing her to seek perfection in her home and work. But she could not stop herself repeating them to her children.

‘You’re a selfish witch. Get into the fucking bath.’

She grabbed Willow’s other arm and hauled the child up over the edge, dunking her into the water.

‘It’s cold!’ Willow shouted.

‘Shut up.’ Zara grabbed the hose and turned the tap. Without waiting for the water to heat up, she held it over Willow’s head.

‘Mammy! It’s freezing!’ The child’s arms flailed about as the water flowed over her head and face. Her hand hit against the bubble bath bottle, upending it into the bath.

‘Look what you’ve done!’ Zara screamed. ‘The mess! You’ve created another fucking mess.’ She slapped the top of Willow’s head. Hard.

‘Mammy, stop. You’re hurting me… I can’t see.’

‘You never think of others. In your eyes you’re number one. Let me tell you, madam, you are not number one in my eyes. I am.’ She dropped the hose, switched off the tap, then grabbed Willow’s hair, twisted it around her hand and dunked the child under the water. ‘What can you see now? Huh? What? Nothing. That’s what you are. Bloody nothing.’

She knew her voice was elevated to a screech but was unable to hold onto any semblance of control. She was partly conscious of someone else in the bathroom, but she was too enraged to stop her actions. She raised her child, then dunked her again. The water was a mess of bubbles and foam.

‘Mrs Devine?’ A tiny, tearful voice echoed from somewhere. ‘Please stop. You’re hurting Willow.’

Zara kept pressure on the wet matted hair. Someone was tugging at her arm, her shoulder, her shirt. She removed one hand and lashed out behind her. A cry. A thud.

The sound partially raised the veil that had shrouded her eyes in a mist of rage.

She let go of Willow’s hair and looked behind her. Naomi was lying in a crumpled heap. What had the girl hit against? The ceramic toilet bowl? Maybe. A surge of bile rose up her throat and she went to spew into the bath. But someone was in the bath. The film of rage gradually lifted.

‘No, no, no!’ she cried, dragging her daughter’s dead weight out of the water and onto the floor. ‘I didn’t mean it. Honey, wake up. Mammy is sorry.’

But Willow didn’t move. Zara pressed her face to her little girl’s but could feel no breath. She laid the lifeless child on the wet mat and leaned back, staring at the chaos she’d created.

A groan. A moan.

She snapped her head around to witness Naomi struggling to breathe, a trickle of blood seeping onto the floor from her head.

What was she to do? It was an accident, but no one would believe her. They’d say she was mad, crazy like her mother had been. She’d be locked up, and what about Harper then?

Harper.

She crawled two paces to Naomi. ‘Stay there. Don’t move. I’ll be back.’

She forced herself to stand and go down the stairs. She thought she saw Harper’s shadow at her bedroom door. No time to think of her. She had to do something. And fast. Bin bags. She needed them. For what? She didn’t know, just that she needed them.

Rummaging under the sink, she found a roll of large garden waste bags and a pair of Marigold gloves, and there lying behind the cleaning materials, she saw Dave’s hammer. The bastard had fucked off and left her to raise Willow, a feral child, on her own.

She brought the roll of bags and the hammer up the stairs.

Harper was in the bathroom, hiccuping with tormented sobs. Zara dropped the hammer and bags and shook her by the shoulders. Her fingers dug into skin and bone. ‘If you say one word, I will kill you. Do you understand? I will kill you.’

Still the child wept.

Zara picked up the hammer and waved it in her face. ‘One word and I’ll smash your face in.’

Harper gulped, nodded and ran back into her room. Then Zara remembered the half-pill in her pocket. She followed her and shoved it into the child’s mouth.